A song for you
by luhtavilla
Summary: Lily has a secret. James thinks that she is cheating on him. LJ fluff. One shot.


Disclaimer: Everything you recognise from the Harry Potter books belongs to J. K. Rowling.  
A/N: I originally wrote this fic in Finnish and this is the translation of it. I'm sorry for all the mistakes in it, but English is not my native language and I don't have a beta…

**Note (2.5.05): I have removed the song lyrics that were in the story because apparently FFN doesn't allow them.**

**A song for you**

James Potter was walking along the corridor towards the Gryffindor common room, deep in thought. He peeked into every room he came across, obviously looking for something. This something happened to be his girlfriend Lily Evans.

James scrambled into the common room and looked around. He saw that almost every Gryffindor was there, except the one he was trying to find. He frowned.

"Trudy, have you seen Lily?" He asked his girlfriend's best friend.

"Yes, she left a while ago saying she had something important to do", Trudy answered, not taking her eyes off of the game of chess she was playing with Remus.

"Oh", James said, confused. Normally he wouldn't have worried about Lily's doings, but the matter had started to bother him because during the last couple of days Lily had been disappearing for hours, and if someone asked her where she had gone to, she wouldn't answer. _Maybe she's seeing someone else… _James thought, but shrugged it off. _Lily would never do that!_ He scolded himself. _I hope…_

_-----_

"Lily! Where have you been? I've been looking everywhere for you!" James said when Lily arrived at the common room two hours later.

"I was in the library, reading", Lily answered, but James knew it was a lie.

"No, you weren't. I went in there earlier and you weren't there", James rose from the armchair he had been sitting in and walked towards Lily. "Why don't you tell me the truth? You know you can tell me anything."

"Yes, I know, and I'd tell you, but you just have to wait a little longer. You'll find out eventually…" Lily said and kissed James on the lips. "I have to go write my transfiguration essay for McGonagall so I don't get detention tomorrow." She kissed him again and then hurried to her dormitory.

James stayed standing. He wanted to trust Lily so badly, but his mind was filled with worry. He didn't know what he would do if he ever lost Lily.

----

A week later professor Dumbledore announced over lunch that Hogwarts would be holding a ball. James felt excited. He could ask Lily to be his date and at the same time, prove to himself that everything was all right between them.

Later that afternoon, after the last class was over, James drew Lily aside.

"Lily? Would you like to go to the ball with me?" James asked, but he was completely unprepared for the answer he got.

"I'm sorry, James, but I can't", Lily said. For a moment James was certain that his heart had stopped beating.

"You… can't?" he said as though he hadn't quite understood the words.

"I'm really sorry. I would really like to come, but…" Lily started saying.

"…but you are already going with someone else", James finished her sentence.

"What? No, I'm not!"

"Well then you're waiting for someone else to ask you."

"No! How on earth did you come up with that?" Lily asked, frowning.

"Oh, please! Lately you have been disappearing somewhere almost every day and you don't come back until after several hours. Instead of cheating on me behind my back, why didn't you just tell me that you didn't want to see me anymore? Do you think I'm blind?" James asked angrily.

"No, but you're clearly very stupid! I can't believe you think I'd do such a thing! Don't you trust me at all?" Lily asked, also getting angry.

"I have tried, but how do you expect me to trust you, when you are obviously hiding something from me?"

"I don't believe this…" Lily muttered. "Can we continue this conversation later? I have to go to a meeting in a few minutes…"

"A meeting? With who? Your secret boyfriend?" James was almost shouting.

"No! It's nothing like that! Please calm down! I can explain later…" Lily was starting to sound desperate.

"Forget it! Our relationship is over!" James said and marched off without giving Lily a chance to respond. He didn't see when Lily dropped to her knees and started sobbing. He was too angry thinking he had been betrayed.

_Two years… we have been together for two years… doesn't that mean anything to her? _James couldn't believe what had just happened. He slammed his fist angrily into the wall and grimaced in pain. He had truly believed his relationship with Lily to be special. He had even thought about proposing after they had finished school! But now all those dreams had been crushed, and James didn't know what to do.

He gave the password to the Fat Lady and climbed in. His best friend Sirius Black jumped up from the armchair he had been sitting in and rushed towards James.

"Well? Did you ask Li-?" Sirius started, but James walked straight past him. "What did I say?" Sirius asked, confused.

"Don't talk to me!" James snapped at him and disappeared up the boy's staircase.

"Well, someone's in a bad mood", Sirius mused.

----

During the following week James seemed to fall into some kind of depression and snapped at everyone who tried to talk to him. No one apart from his and Lily's friends knew about the break up, but James was certain it wouldn't take long before the whole school found out. James hadn't seen Lily anywhere but in classes and even then he had carefully avoided looking in her direction. He had noticed the dark rings under Lily's eyes and how she always kept her head bowed, but he was still too angry to care about her pain.

Lily's friend Trudy had taken her side and refused to talk to James, even though it was very hard since Trudy's boyfriend Remus was one of James's best friends and thus almost always in his company. Peter had taken James's side, probably because he didn't want to argue with James, and Sirius supported James all though he didn't think Lily had done anything wrong. Remus didn't take sides, but privately he thought James had acted too rashly since there was no proof against Lily.

After two weeks the situation hadn't changed in the slightest and the ball was coming up. Trudy and Remus were of course going together and Sirius and (surprisingly) Peter had found dates for themselves. James couldn't decide whether to go or not. He hadn't even thought about asking someone else to the ball, because Lily was still too clearly on his mind. He had been thinking about apologising to Lily, but every time he was about to do so, something had reminded him of the anger and mistrust he had felt earlier.

The ball definitely wasn't approaching in happy circumstances.

----

"Oh, come on, James! What good will it do if you just sit here and mope when you could be having fun at the ball? You know that deep inside of you, you really want to come!" Remus yelled through the closed bathroom door.

"Yeah, James! There are lots of pretty girls who would like to dance with you!" yelled Sirius receiving a death glare from Remus.

"You're not helping!" Remus whispered fiercely and then continued in a louder voice to James: "Would you please come out of there? I promise you don't have to do anything you don't want to if you just come! And you wouldn't want to miss all of the delicious food, now would you?"

The door was opened cautiously and James's head peeked out from behind it.

"Fine", he said stepping out of his hiding place. "I'll come, but I won't promise to do anything."

"Whatever, just put your suit on quickly or we're going to be late!" Remus urged while looking at his mirror image to check if he looked all right.

The theme of the ball was a muggle party so everyone had to wear muggle clothes. For once Remus was glad he had taken Muggle Studies instead of Divination, because otherwise he wouldn't have any idea what to wear.

"I'm ready!" James announced a while later and he, Sirius and Remus (Peter had already left since he had to meet his date who was in Hufflepuff) went to the common room. They didn't have to wait for long because soon Trudy came down the stairs leading to girl's dormitories and James noticed (to his great amusement) that Remus's jaw dropped. He had to admit that Trudy did look great in her long, dark blue dress and with her brown hair in a stylish bun on top of her head. _I bet Lily looks even more beautiful_, he thought before realising what he was thinking. He shook his head. _Don't start thinking about it now…_

"Where's Lily?" Remus asked Trudy quietly, hoping James wouldn't hear, but his sharp ears caught the question.

"She left over an hour ago somewhere and I haven't seen her since", Trudy replied. _Probably to meet her date_, James thought gloomily. _Stop that!_

Sirius's date, Mandy Barnes, arrived after a few minutes (stylishly late, as she claimed) and they were finally ready to go the ball. They were awed when they saw the Great Hall. Long vines were hanging from the walls and colourful butterflies were flying from the walls and the ceiling and few braver ones were fluttering near the students. The Hall's enchanted ceiling showed the cloudless night sky and a thin layer of fog was rippling on the floor. The sight was truly magical.

A stage had been put up at the top of the Hall where the teachers' table usually stood and on it were numerous instruments, waiting for their players. James pondered for a moment what band Dumbledore might've gotten to play, but that thought was soon erased from his mind. Some of the couples had already invaded the dance floor and were currently dancing to the tune of a slow song that seemed to be coming from nowhere.

James couldn't stop himself from searching with his eyes for the beautiful redheaded girl he loved so much. She was nowhere to be seen. James sat down at one of the round tables that had been put up beside the walls with Trudy and Remus. Sirius and Mandy had already disappeared into the crowd of dancing couples.

When it seemed that all students had finally arrived, professor Dumbledore stood, smiling at everyone and his eyes twinkling merrily. The music stopped playing and the students turned to look at the headmaster.

"Welcome all to this happy event! I hope that you all will have a good time tonight and that you will enjoy it as much as I will! Tonight's music will be taken care of by a few of our students who know the secrets of muggle music better than the rest of us. I hope that you will respect their diligence for they have practiced very hard during the last few weeks. Now, without further ado I only wish to say four words: let the party begin!" Dumbledore proclaimed and sat down while everyone applauded.

About a dozen students, who James knew by appearance, stepped out of the crowd and took the stage. Each of them took their own instruments and three of them took microphones (James was certain they had been bewitched with the sonorus charm, since muggle devices didn't work at Hogwarts). James turned his gaze off of them and observed the scene around him without really fixing his eyes on anything. A slow song started playing and Trudy and Remus moved over to the dance floor leaving James to sit alone at the table. James didn't pay any attention to the music until a familiar voice began singing with three other voices as its background singers.

James raised his gaze up slowly and stared with his eyes wide open at the fourth singer who he hadn't noticed taking the stage.

It was Lily.

'I hope that you will respect their diligence for they have practiced very hard during the last few weeks.' Dumbledore's words echoed in James's ears.

Lily hadn't been seeing another boy. She had been practising with the band.

James had never regretted anything as much as he now regretted the way he had treated Lily.

Lily's eyes found James and for a moment they just stared at each other with all the emotions that had been building up in the last few weeks showing in that one eye connection. Lily carried on with the song without taking her eyes off James.

James stood up and walked closer to the stage. His heart was beating painfully fast and at the moment he didn't want anything as badly as he wanted to apologise to Lily and that everything would be all right between them once again.

The last notes of the song hadn't even disappeared yet when the Great Hall filled with thundering applause. An embarrassed blush appeared on Lily's cheeks and she bowed with the rest of the band. After that she gave her microphone to one of the background singers and whispered something in her ear before jumping down from the stage. Lily cast a meaningful glance at James and hurried out of the Hall. James didn't hesitate and ran after her. As soon as they were far enough from the noise coming from the Great Hall, Lily threw herself into James's arms and started sobbing uncontrollably. James wrapped his arms around her waist and laid his chin on top of her head.

"I'm so sorry…" he whispered and Lily clung to him even tighter.

"It was supposed to be a surprise…" Lily said hoarsely. "I never imagined it could lead to this."

"It doesn't matter anymore, everything's all right", James murmured soothingly in Lily's ear and soon Lily stopped sobbing. James raised her chin gently and wiped away the tears that had fallen on her cheeks. "I'm sorry I acted the way I did. I had no right to-"

Lily stopped any further apologises by pressing her lips against James's. They kissed there, in the middle of a deserted hallway, for a moment that felt like eternity, before separating.

"Oh god, I don't know what I'd do if I ever lost you…" James said, holding back his own tears. "The last three weeks have been like hell to me and I never want to experience that again."

"You don't have to. Never again", Lily said firmly and they huddled together, just enjoying each other's presence.

They weren't disturbed by the noise coming from the Great Hall and they didn't move even when Peeves the poltergeist flew past them, cackling. They didn't know anything but each other, and that was enough for them. They knew their love would last forever.

The End


End file.
